Though Presbyterian preachers instituted the series of meetings which resulted in the “Great Awakening” and were active at all the camp meetings, their denomination profited less, numerically, than either the Baptist or the Methodist.
The reason was that several of their most influential preachers, Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy, Richard McNemar and John Thompson, began preaching certain schisms, contrary to Calvinism.
The orthodox of the church were not only worried but frightened by the growth of the schism of doctrine. For a long time they dared not oppose it, thinking that it [pg 308] would split the church. It was first officially considered by the Presbytery of Springfield, who placed Richard McNemar under dealings.
When the Kentucky synod met in Lexington on September 6, 1803, with Samuel Shannon as moderator, he called the attention of the body to a petition signed by eighty Presbyterians and letters from Mr. William Lamme, charging that Revs. Richard McNemar and John Thompson, of Washington Presbytery, were promulgating erroneous doctrines and that their Presbytery had refused to consider the petition implicating their orthodoxy. The synod decided to enter upon an examination and trial of the two members.
When this vote was announced they with Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall and John Dunlavy protested and withdrew.
Two days later those withdrawing announced they had formed an organization of their own, which they called the Springfield Synod. Thereupon the Kentucky synod, over the protest of Calvin Campbell and several others, suspended them; leaving it to their respective presbyteries to restore them upon satisfactory proof of repentance.
The five suspended ministers were the founders of “The New Light Christians.” Already having large churches, the most of their congregations followed them and they immediately went to work and because of their popularity, zeal, force of character and the sympathy of many who believed them persecuted, their denomination spread rapidly. The organization continued to grow in strength until 1859, at which time they had sixty conferences, fifteen hundred ministers and more than two hundred and fifty thousand communicants. The sect has disappeared from Kentucky.
[pg 309] McNemar and Dunlavy joined the Shakers in 1805. In 1807 Marshall and Thompson, declaring their repentance were taken back into the presbytery. Barton W. Stone repudiated infant baptism; declared that the ordinance was for the remission of conscious sin and should be administered to all believing penitents, even though they had been baptized in infancy.
At a great meeting at Concord church he selected Acts 2:38 for his text and convinced a great many who had been baptized in infancy that they must be rebaptized. He afterwards said that he was never led into the full spirit of the doctrine “until it was revised by Bro. Alexander Campbell some years after.” Stone is the author of the hymn once so popular: “The Lord is the Fountain of Goodness and Love.”
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